See, I am one of the biggest fans of Christian Bale that the world has ever seen. I absolutely adore his acting style, his credibility, his looks (even when he's doing his best to ruin them), his diversity but, at the same time, I do not turn a blind eye to some of his adventures into the field known as crap movies. This one isn't crap but it isn't great either. Just hours before I saw it, I was still convinced that the Oscar nod to the supporting male role could finally go his way. Not so sure anymore. And it's not because he's not unbelievably great in it, he is. Nobody can pull of these transform-your-body type of roles like he can (we all remember The Machinist, right? No? Go google his image and utter the obligatory wtf!). The problem here is that there's not much to work with in regards to script and story.
Mark Wahlberg's character is supposed to be the main one - just check out the movie poster, who's centerpiece there? Exactly. Bale steals the show but, unfortunately, there is not much of it. White trash family, two half-brothers both boxers, one on the rise, one a crack addict, a girl that implants the ambition into the promising brother and there you have it, Rocky all over again.
Alas, it ain't Rocky. With Rocky, you kind of felt drawned into the story, with this one it's just bland and emotionless. Stallone, as we all well know, can't act. Guess what, neither can Wahlberg. It was a bit painful to watch him in this one together with Amy Adams who was standardly irritating so that, by the end of the movie, you feel numb. Still, you always had Bale to turn to and at certain points in the movie I actually hoped that he might get to have the boxing comeback instead of Wahlberg. Oh, well, Batman's coming out soon, yay!
So, like I said, it does not get the eighth round. Solid 7.
